The Broward County Library's one copy of Tristes Tropiques was missing - obviously a popular beach read - so I went downstairs and bought a copy of A Moveable Feast for a dollar.
I'm going to Key West this Friday, so I thought it might make sense to read Hemingway, even on Paris. I was never a big fan: I recognized his revolutionary contribution to literature, but I preferred the elegance of Fitzgerald.
So Saturday afternoon I stretched out on the couch - my left thigh smarting with 10 dermatologist stitches - and began one of countless classics that have somehow managed to escape my attention. Hemingway, I realized, was greatly influenced by Impressionist painters, for he didn't describe a scene with lots of details (lots of work), instead he tried to capture its essence with a few quick brush strokes, a few representative lines. It was effective for conveying a mood but not for putting the reader there.
Also, the tone of self-satisfaction got on my nerves. A hugely successful writer in his 50s - when he wrote this book - Hemingway looked back on his early days in Paris with great affection and arrogance. He writes of sitting in cafes and finishing stories and knowing that the stories are good, and that he has worked hard to make them good, and that now he will drink a rum, or a carafe of wine - perhaps a rum followed by a carafe of wine - to celebrate the good work and the good story and his young life in Paris before becoming (if you read between the lines) the great American writer.
My ordered copy of Tristes Tropiques should arrive any day now.
